vs St Kilda FC
won 6-2
CB 3, CG 2, TW 1, DC, GF, TK, TH
JH (Coach), AW (Cape Bitch)
CB MOM/POF

Sorry about the disrespect. I had a few things on my plate. A diagnosis of osteoarthritis in my acromioclavicular joint, an ultrasound guided steroid injection, packing to go camping before: flying to auckland, driving to taupo bay, driving back to auckland, christmas etc, ferry to waiheke, NYE etc, ferry back to auckland, flying to melbourne for 21 hours (and in that 21 hours: recording a voiceover, sleeping, packing the trailer), driving to newmerella, driving to saltwater creek, camping, swimming, going on a mandate with tao and cocky, nearly stepping on a brown snake, maintaining a near-perfect esky bin with large blocks of ice, having kondo and becky stay for one night and eating lamb and drinking whiskey, the annual whiskey row (inaugurating the morning lie-down), the pack-up, driving back to melbourne (including toasted sanga and v in cann river, fish and chips in traralgon), the trailer unpack, one night in melbourne, driving to portsea for two nights, driving back to melbourne… and here I find myself.

Before I get down to business let me further address my misdemeanour/ crime/ disrespect in failing to post my match report within the required seven days. So it’s actually 45 days since the Grand Final. Interestingly the GF was played 23 days before the end of 2011. If I manage to post this today then another 22 days will have passed since the first day of 2012. Which would mean that I would have just scraped in ahead of the second 23 day cycle. Which is fortunate because I believe the rules state that if two cycles of 23 days are passed without the posting of a match report then the required punishment is permanent deregistration from the order of Nannas followed by castration and defenestration. Happily I will have just avoided the first two of these punishments (assuming my post goes up this day January 22, 2012) and will have to suffer only the ignominy of defenestration. And I shall obediently be defenestrated as required.

Now to the game. But first, the build-up. It was nothing if not a build-up of such surging, raging and frothing tumescence that all the power of the Southern Ocean might seem a child’s bath in comparison. It’s turgidity was such that the frustrations of seventy five fourteen year old boarding school boys (having had their porridge spiked with viagra and made to watch JH mince around naked but for a hand towel) might be barely discernible. Yes it was just that kind of deeply swollen member of a build-up that can be caused by only one thing: words! And not just any words but the mighty fighting words of our master wordsmith Coach Judge Coach. He lifted us up where we belonged with his poetic viagra, he spoke of mountains and hyenas and jackals and lions. He spiked our morale so full of mythical vibrations and the thick, hot blood of narrative that we were in a frenzy of victory-lust by the time we hit the court on December 8, 2011.

But what of our highly fancied, overwolf of an opponent, St Kilda FC? The team that had won every game of the season. The undefeated. And if I had the stats I could tell you about their points, their high scoring games and their whopping goal difference. But I don’t have the stats so I won’t. Suffice to say: THEY WERE NOT EXPECTING TO LOSE! They weren’t expecting to see a team of Nannas high on prose-induced morale either.

We stepped up and we stepped to them. A very solid overall team performance. Excellent coaching from JH. The defence was dogged and determined, the shooting inspired, the possession play text-book. And we kept on pounding them. Even when we were 4-2 up we kept on giving it for the whole thirty-six minutes. It was interesting to see a team as good as St Kilda actually begin to fall apart as they realised they couldn’t win. The final score: 6-2.

Then we went to Kondo’s for a classic six goal after match function. Steaks and an enormous daikon that we all had a go at grating. The lebanese blonde. Beers. Talk of family crests. Guy revealed that he comes from a long line of strawberry eaters. Nothing wrong with that. Strawberries are good for your teeth and they are the only fruit to have their seeds on the outside. Just like the Nannas who wear their cojones on the outside of their trousers when they smash the top of the table into the next cubicle and beyond. Perhaps, the Nannas’ finest hour!